Like A Dead Man Walking
by R. Scott
Summary: Inwardly, she sobbed, cried for a thousand memories, words unsaid, dreams unrealised. They were poisonous things, venom flowing through her, hurting so badly she wanted nothing more than to forget everything. And in that instant she knew she was dying.


A/N: Hi! So, us Ashes fanatics finally have a category to call our own! And to celebrate, I bring you this. Be warned- I'm loading on the angst here. But if you've read my other stuff, you'll have a vague idea of what you're in for. Bit of a mind bender too- hope it makes sense! ;o)

Thanks so much again to **Lucida Bright** - The greatest beta this side of 1981.

Hope you enjoy!

Ruby :o)

* * *

Leaning his hands against the roof of his car, he bowed his blond head and closed his eyes.

Closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. Failed to shut out the angry voices.

"_Get the fuck off me!!!"_

"_Fucking pigs!"_

"_Get down on the ground!"_

When Gene opened his eyes again, everything seemed much more in focus, much more desperate. He saw the pub catch ablaze as a flaming bottle crashed through its window, a glorious torch lighting up the midnight sky. He saw a man's skull crack as it hit the pavement, pulled back up by a fierce grip before being slammed back down again, black tar-like blood spilling across the road. He saw knuckles splitting as they collided with faces, jaws breaking, animals howling and scrapping on the lamp-lit street. He saw his men, his loyal brigade, cuffing strangers, ducking from fists, from flame, from knives.

"_Scum!"_

"_You fucking scum!"_

He'd only just got here. Only just heard about a fight breaking out in The Squire and Horse – a fight which had escalated into a full-blown riot.

"_I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill 'im!!"_

The voices were mismatched, snippets and snatches of lives, all meshed together to create this cacophony. He had no idea what was going on. He found it hard to care, these days. Watching this play out was like watching theatre; something that once gave him some sort of thrill and yet now it felt like he'd lived it a hundred times. His face was expressionless. Nothing but white noise blared between his ears.

Instinctively, his hand reached out blindly and grabbed the collar of a youth, yanking him back with a force that shouldn't have been in him. He slammed him face first against a wall, this random stranger who was clutching a bottle in his hand, felt a dull satisfaction at the sickening thud when head collided with brick. There was a protest, but Gene twisted his arm, causing him to cry out. He was young. Too young to get messed up in this kind of shit. Gene cuffed him, and hauled him over to the van that was slowly filling with bloody, broken men.

He heard nothing, felt nothing. He was on autopilot, charging through this nightmarish scene, like an old bull.

"Guv!"

He turned and saw his Detective Sergeant holding back a brutish looking middle-aged man, struggling to break free, snarling like some kind of wolf; Ray kicked his arse, shouting at Gene. "All 'ell's broke loose – Matthews raided the pub, and they came out of bloody nowhere."

Someone's hand clamped on to Gene's arm from behind and he grabbed it, yanked him forward, hearing bone crack as he bent it out of shape, shoving him mercilessly on to his knees. He cried out. They were all the same. All scum, all useless, worthless, all lost in this endless jungle. He could feel his own heart beat in perfect synchronicity with his surroundings, he blended in with it all seamlessly.

He loved his job once. Lived for it. He could barely remember those days.

"Get them out of 'ere." He said tonelessly, a darkness rising in his eyes, stepping on this idiot's neck and watching him squirm beneath his foot.

This power he had… sometimes he thought it had been placed in the wrong hands. He felt like some kind of god sometimes. Brutal. Monstrous, some might say. That was his role. That was what he was expected to be. He played his part perfectly, their leader, their boss, the one that everyone looked up to, who they all wanted to be. And it would be so easy, he thought, so easy just to crush them all, to tread more firmly on this neck until it snapped under the force. But he held back. He always held back, always stayed on the right side of the line, was always tempted to cross it but never did. Someone always stopped him. Sam.

Alex.

Alex…

He swayed on his feet slightly. Like he was drunk. His head pounded, the blood in his veins ran deathly cold, his whole body began to shake.

His throat tightened suddenly, and in one swift moment he was utterly consumed by hate, by anger, and he kicked the skinny runt that was beneath him – this lost, hopeless man, someone's love, someone's son, and he kicked him. Over and over until he couldn't hear anything again, could only see the black and red clouds formed by his own rage, blurred, on fire, death.

All he could see was death.

The boy sprawled, practically lifeless, in the street, the mark of his boot almost visible. He coughed, blood spluttering out of his dry lips.

There was a sudden, deafening noise, sending Gene staggering forward, as an explosion blasted out of the pub. He was surrounded by fire and noise, by screams and cries. He couldn't breathe. Felt blind, alone in this crowd, this sea of scum.

He had no one to hold him back, no one to stop him anymore. And as they dragged the kid away he heard each of his staggering breaths echo in his empty skull, listening as his heart raced uncontrollably, thumping as though it were trying to escape his chest. As though it was about to give up.

He pressed his hands to his face almost in agony, before running them through his hair and staring up at the sky. Smoke billowed upwards, blocking out the few stars that appeared over London. No one watched over this city, this wasteland, as it was collapsing in on itself. The place that had brought him nothing but misery. Misery, and _her._

He stood there, feeling utterly lost. She wasn't there to guide him now, through this place, like some kind of anchor, keeping him on the right track, keeping him sane in many ways. But now… London had transformed before him into something completely foreign, alien. He'd known it before he'd met her: he didn't belong here.

He didn't know where he belonged any more.

So when he turned away from the horrific scene to be met with the sight of her, standing in the middle of an empty road, he thought that, finally, he'd lost his mind.

***

_Alcohol was a wonderful thing. It took total control – turned horrors into beauties, the most noble and dignified of men into utter fools, allowed its victims to drown in joy or in misery whilst it consumed them, made them feel other-worldly and lonely and mad all at once. It was bliss. It was a terrible, eternal poison. The constant; there through the good and the bad, something he could always come home to. It was the one thing in his life he was sure would never desert him._

_And without a doubt the best thing about it was its ability to get him locked blissfully in impossible situations that he would never have the courage to pursue if he were sober._

"_How drunk are you, exactly?"_

_He could barely hear her; only the deep, melodic tone of her voice as it rumbled against his chest. He didn't look at her. Too tired, the only energy left in him enabling him to stand and sway slightly, supported by her. It was dark. His feet shuffled to the slow, hypnotic music that was easing out of the speakers at a ridiculous volume. It made the whole experience surreal, the bass line, his head and his heart pumping simultaneously. A dance, she'd said, grinning mischievously. She'd known exactly what she was doing to him, but he was too foolish to turn her down._

_They'd danced. They'd reached the point in the evening where both were too intoxicated and exhausted to walk away. It was reaching into the early hours of the morning and there they were, each supported by the other, clinging as they swayed helplessly, his arms wrapped her hips and hers flung over his shoulders, lost in this bizarre moment that he knew would never have happened under normal circumstances. Opportunities like this were rare and if he was honest with himself he didn't have much to lose._

"_I'm not drunk." He replied, betrayed by the slur in his words, mumbling into her shoulder and stumbling ever so slightly. He felt rather than heard her short laugh which was followed by a sigh._

"_Shaz looked pretty today."_

"_Pffft… she doesn't hold a candle to you, Bolls."_

_Another laugh – more like a scoff – erupted from her, and she in turn stumbled a little against his feet, lost in the darkness of the hall and lost to the music, the lights and other swaying couples._

_He loved weddings; an excuse to get spectacularly pissed and an excuse to get her in this exact spot. Although he wasn't quite sure how the bloody hell he'd managed it and doubted if he would ever remember._

"_Well…" she began, and he noticed she had shifted somehow in his arms; her lips were closer to his ear "I didn't look that nice on my wedding day."_

"_Blimey. What brain-dead prat thought it was a good idea to marry you?"_

"_Ha… he saw the light in the end, didn't he?" She spoke with a high pitched tone, but he couldn't mistake the bitterness in her words. "Bastard."_

_He wound his arms tighter around her waist. The music changed, unnoticed by them both._

_Something was nagging at him now and it bubbled drunkenly out of his lips. "Never said you were married."_

"_Hmmm…" she murmured, low and enticing. "Must have slipped my mind."_

_He buried his head further into the crook of her neck, his eyes remaining closed. He could fall asleep, he thought, just fall asleep standing here._

"_Jealous, are we?"_

"_Jealous? Pfft… had a lucky escape, that one. It's enough listening to you prattle on like a lunatic at work. Having to come home to it… blimey. Poor sod. No wonder he upped and left."_

_He was mildly aware that what had just left his mouth was a series of incoherent mumbles into the base of her neck. She must have heard him though because he felt a sharp pressure on his toes where her heel had stamped__._

"_It was hardly a marriage." She sighed after tripping backwards slightly and dragging him with her. He placed his hands on her waist to steady himself. "I was young and foolish… and pregnant. It was doomed from the start."_

_She pulled away from him to have a sip from the beer bottle she'd been clutching since this 'dance' began, and he opened his eyes, blearily, as if waking from a deep sleep. It was an odd sensation, like seeing her for the first time, but this time she was more blurred, a lot more surreal. She looked up at him and wrapped her arms back around his neck, smiling up at him almost bitterly, her eyelids struggling to remain open. Just looking at her was making him want to pass out, trapped in that state of drunkenness where he had no hope of making any logical decisions._

"_What made him come to his senses then?" he said, trying to stay awake and not really interested in her answer. Just focus on the way her lips move, focus on her voice, her eyes, everything about her now up close and hazy. Dreamy._

"_Like I said. Pregnant."_

_He clamped his eyes shut for a moment so they could focus more once open. There was that lost look in her eyes again, the one that surfaced now and then, the look that told him he could never keep her. She belonged to someone else._

_But now, he could convince himself in his stupor, now he had her, if only for this evening, for this long, never ending dance. Once they had recovered from their hangovers everything would return to normal and he would go back to observing her privately and sitting back whilst she yelled madness at him, adoring her and wanting her and loathing her all in equal measures. And she would continue on her tireless quest to destroy him and everything he believed in, blissfully unaware of exactly what she was doing._

"_And what about you, Gene?" she said, her mascara and makeup smudged, a drunken grin and that tell-tale glint back in her eyes. "What made her come to her senses?"_

"_Christ – when you said 'D'you fancy a dance?', I didn't know you really meant 'D'you fancy a chat about our failed marriages.'"_

"_Typical," she muttered. "Avoiding the question; there's the funny quip – next comes the thinly veiled insult."_

"_How well you know me."_

"_I should bloody well hope so, I thought you up."_

_He sighed, looking up at the ceiling and was momentarily blinded by the mirror ball. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back on to her shoulder. Sleepy and drunk and obsessed with this woman. He wondered if this strange sensation would be like waking up in her bed, something he had regular fantasies about, and ached with the knowledge that he would never know how that felt. It was a depressing, tiring cycle, this thing they had… whatever it was. He was bored with it. Bored… but never willing to give up._

"_D'you miss her?"_

"_I miss not having to iron me own shirts."_

_There was a pause before he continued._

"_I miss the company."_

_He'd surprised himself with the honesty of his answer, and knew that he was heading into awkward territory with this topic. Being drunk left all his memories in a depressing haze and he was suddenly overwhelmed by it._

_And he was sharing it with Alex. This alarming, deranged, beautiful woman who__, he had begun to acknowledge, he would move heaven and earth for, he would take a bullet for, this woman who he would never stop wanting no matter what she said or did._

_He'd thought that about his ex once, hadn't he? He must have done, surely – he married her after all. He couldn't remember. That life seemed like someone else's now._

_Alex__ had pulled back slightly and was looking at him, a lost, sad expression on her face. He wished, as he often did, that he could read her thoughts. It would make life a damned sight easier._

"_This isn't even real, you know." She said in a whisper, as if telling him a secret. She looked confused, her brow furrowed, her eyes shining. "All this. It doesn't even exist, not really."_

_He gazed back at her sadly, wishing she would just make sense for once in her life._

"_No?" he replied in a quiet voice. He didn't want her to slip away from him, and he held her tighter without even realising._

_She closed her eyes, and he felt like the next words that would leave her mouth would be important. He'd remember them. They'd echo in his head each night before he slept, blurred with her image behind his eyes. He knew it._

_She choked back a sob, her eyes wet._

"_I want to go home."_

_***_

"Tell me you can see her…" he found himself muttering, above the chaos and screams. His voice was almost lost amongst it all. He didn't know what was going on behind him anymore, didn't care. Ray stood beside him, staring out too, and he was only mildly aware of his presence, everything around him completely blurred, not even there. "Tell me." His voice almost broke through the effort of speaking, his words coming out through gritted teeth. "Tell me that you can see her."

He heard no reply. Couldn't look to see if he'd nodded or shaken his head, couldn't tear his eyes away even if he'd wanted to. It was too beautiful to look away from.

Too impossible.

***

_He heard it before he saw it. Loud. The loudest thing he'd ever heard, piercing the air, piercing his skull.__ It happened too fast to be shocking. It was almost inevitable._

_Almost._

_They looked at each other, her eyes wide as her whole body jolted. Her hand flew to her stomach, each breath catching in her throat. She coughed. A trail of blood slid from her lips._

_He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Everything after that was total instinct. __Lunging forward, he caught her as she fell to her knees, lowered her down so he had her cradled in his arms. He saw the blood more than anything else. So much of it, too much of it, more than anyone should have, pooling out of her at a terrifying speed._

_She was panicking. Breathing rapidly, each breath sucking in the air like it was the last one. There were tears in her eyes, though she seemed completely unaware, somehow._

_He had no clue what was going on around him, no clue if they'd got the gunman. He was shaking. "Bolls…" he muttered desperately, trying to keep eye contact with her, trying to stay sane "Come on, Bolls… look at us__…"_

_Her hand reached up and clutched at his lapel, stained with red, covered in it. He felt like being sick. Just keep looking at me. Keep looking. Please._

_She coughed, blood flying._

"_Fuck…" he said, more like a moan, laced in agony, voice breaking. He clamped his teeth together, holding back the sheer terror, trying to hold it back, staring into her eyes as they flickered open and closed "Look at me, Bolly. Alex. Alex, look at me."_

_She managed to look straight into his eyes. Held his gaze. Held him captive__._

"_Gene…" she whispered._

"_I've got you, love." He said quietly, fighting to keep the emotion from his voice. He was crumbling, horrified, alone. "Keep looking at me. Don't close your eyes."_

_He'd known as soon as the bullet was fired that it was a lost cause. He knew it was. But he refused to believe it. The moment felt surreal; couldn't actually be happening. He'd seen it a hundred times over in nightmarish visions, and ignored it, had to, because they stepped willingly into this kind of danger every day. She was there, fighting it all by his side, every single day… and it was wonderful._

_She let out a horrible noise, then. A sob, a moan, strangled. Like she was dying._

"_Come on…" he said, letting out a breath that he realised he'd been holding. "Stay with us. Please." He couldn't understand the words that were leaving his lips, they didn't make sense to him, how could they to her? But she was still looking at him, fighting it. Her eyelids were struggling to stay up…_

_She was smiling, he noticed with __horror. A small smile was upon her perfect, blood stained lips, lips that he'd never kissed._

"_It's okay," she said, gazing up at him like they were lovers, like they were the only ones left. "It's going… to be all right. I'll… I'll wake up."_

_Her__ pain was numbing him, his entire body frozen with it, he couldn't stop shaking. "Don't," he murmured, holding her tighter, her words carving him to pieces. "Talking… you're making it worse; just… stay with us. Look at me. They're on their way…"_

_Why hadn't he stopped it… why hadn't he taken it…?_

_He could have. If he'd just… leaped in front of her, shoved her out of the way, if they'd have just stayed in the office, if he'd have stopped it all, if, if, if…_

"_Fuck…" he moaned, knuckles white with the grip he had on her. "Fuck… fuck, fuck…"_

_He stared down at her with all the anguish and love he had in him, everything he'd ever felt for her since the moment they'd met, consuming him with such a horrible intensity he thought he might not survive it._

"_Don't die." He said in a small voice, a voice he didn't recognise, dizzy, his throat on fire. "Please, just…"_

_The words were lost as her eyes positively glowed, the look on her face he could only describe as heavenly, the most hideously beautiful thing he'd ever seen._

_And he was scared. More terrified than he could ever remember being. He was completely and utterly helpless._

_Don't die._

_But he could see it happening, right there in front of him, he could see as her eyes began to roll backwards, as her eyelids fluttered, as her life slipped away from her._

"_Alex…" he said, unaware of the sirens, of the others, of the tear that fell down his face. "Alex…"_

_She didn't move a muscle. Not a twitch, not a breath. No pulse. No heartbeat._

_And he let out a shuddering breath as the hand that had been gripping his coat fell limp at her side._

***

That was twenty-three nights ago.

Twenty-three long, sleepless nights. When he'd been like the walking dead, drinking himself into oblivion, wishing he could remain there: because each time he woke up and remembered it all it was like a knife carving a fresh wound into his chest. And he had to trudge through the rest of the day, feeling the pitiful gazes upon him, hearing the mutterings even when he locked himself away in his office. It had been so unbearable he'd taken to spending most of his time cooped up in the evidence room, where no one could get to him.

What made it so much worse was that he'd never missed Sam more. He wasn't ashamed to admit that he needed him. Sam would have been there for him. He would have said something that would somehow make it bearable.

"Guv."

He heard Ray's voice, but still stared ahead. She was there. She was standing there, maybe ten feet away. This was real. He wasn't crazy. He knew that he wasn't. He couldn't be.

_I'm going mad._ He thought, hands pulling at his hair.

He felt sick. Had to fight the urge to vomit.

"Guv…"

She looked completely lost, like she was walking alien streets, tears sparkling on her cheeks. Her hair, without its curls, falling lifeless around her ghostly face.

And she was wearing a suit_._ A grey, fitted suit with a white shirt.

This must be madness, he thought. He didn't know what was real any more. She never had. She always questioned what was real, where she belonged in the world. Nothing was real to her, nothing made sense even when it was as plain as day.

Was this his punishment? Some kind of _test?_ Was he _dying_, finally, at long last after twenty-three nights of waiting? It was all crashing down on him, that horrible, _terrible_ pain, worse than anything physical he'd encountered, it was happening all over again and he couldn't bear it. If seeing her meant he was mad, then so be it. He'd rather that, than… than lose her again…

A hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"I can see 'er, Guv." Ray sighed. Like he didn't want to believe what he was saying. "She's there."

Gene stared at her long and hard through blurred vision, Ray's words shattering through his head.

She was looking straight at him.

* * *

_What's happening? She's crashing…_

_Somebody get the doctor…_

_Hurry up, we're losing her!_

_Mum!?_

_Alex? Alex, sweetheart, can you hear us?_

Now she had the impossible opportunity to look back upon it, she found that dying wasn't at all what she had expected it to be. Not that she had expected anything. Death, though presented with it every working day, was a subject she tried to avoid thinking about in 2008. In 1981, though… She could do nothing _but_ question her mortality, question reality itself. How ironic, she thought, that getting shot in the head was not the worst thing to have happened to her. How ironic it was that she now wished that the bullet had simply ended it all.

_Alex… come on, don't die on us… She's a fighter… she can do it…_

She felt ghostly and knew, more than ever, that her current surroundings couldn't be real. This midnight, lamp-lit street… streets she knew she had walked before, in different clothes. A different _person_, she had been in that world, someone she hardly knew at all, a horrible version of her true self. But who was her true self? She didn't know anything any more.

She could see _him_, of course. The end of the street was on fire and there he stood, in the middle of it all, standing amongst it so regally, king of these streets. And she wanted to scream. To run to him. To have him hold her again, after all this pain and horror, have him back again.

She was dying. In her world, the real world. She could feel it. Everything, all of it… getting shot a second time, waking up in a strange bed in a time she barely remembered … it was all in her head. Something she constructed, a coping mechanism. She was waking up. She was supposed to be _home._

What was she _doing_ back here?

She was trying to piece it together but failing horribly. She wanted to cry. She wanted to feel something again, anything, instead of this terrifying numbness

***

"_You were right, you know." He stared down into the pint of bitter on the table before him. Staring into it as though it were the depths into which he was sinking, chin propped up by his palms, elbows on the table. She would have found the sight somewhat endearing if it weren't for the sadness that lurked in his eyes – a sadness he was desperately trying to conceal from her._

"_Right? About what?"_

"_When you said none of this was real. You… I reckon you were right."_

_She stared at him, shocked. He must be drunk, she thought. Drunk enough to be letting this fall from his mouth. God knows how idiotic she must have seemed when she was slurring the very same thing. He must think her ridiculous._

"_Gene…" She mirrored his position, staring at him intently. Trying to work something out. "What…' _

"_3 years today." He murmured. He still stared down, and sniffed loudly. "You'd think it'd get easier, wouldn't you. Three bloody years."_

_At first, she couldn't make the connection. But suddenly, it struck her with a nauseating pain when she realised what he was talking about._

"_Three years…" she said, her voice suddenly so quiet, so strained by some unknown emotion. "Three years ago today… Sam."_

_He smiled bitterly, and finally looked up at her. His eyes were bloodshot as if he hadn't slept, and it aged him. And she saw before her just a man, emotions threatening to spill over, not some enigma or puzzle or annoyance. He was just him. How could she possibly make him up? His thoughts, his feelings… he was too raw, too intense to be a figment of her imagination. That thought struck her as something so intense, she almost started to cry for him._

"_Almost forgot, didn't I." He said with a sigh, taking a long swig from his drink. She could do nothing but stare sadly at him, the sight so forlorn deep down she wanted to look away, but she couldn't. "And then it just hit me. Like a knife in the gut." He laughed at himself and wiped his face with his hands. "He bloody wouldn't recognise me if he saw me now."_

_She wanted to take his hand but knew she couldn't. Something always held her back from him._

"_I… I couldn't believe it when I heard." She said in a shaky voice. "I mean, I didn't know him all that well but… I never thought him capable."_

"_You make it sound like he did it on purpose."_

_She froze._

"_I mean, I… well. I never thought it would happen to him."_

_He rose his eyebrows and pouted, as if mulling this over._

"_None of us did." He said at last with a sigh, staring down into his drink again. "None of us did."_

_When he looked back at her, stared at her expression, he sneered. "Don't look at me like that…" he said quietly. "Last thing I need is your bloody pity."_

_It stung. Inexplicably. "Then why are you telling me this?" she said, her voice strained. She leaned forward. "What do you want me to say?"_

_He stared at her for a long time, blankly, and it disturbed her. She felt he could easily read her, find out everything about her, know her intimately in the blink of an eye. She wanted to slap him out of it. She wanted to run. Home._

_He leaned back in his seat, his eyes running over her in scrutiny, and then had another swig of his drink. Taking slow, deliberate movements, as if in some kind of turmoil, as if holding back from saying whatever the hell it was he was thinking. Like she expected anything else._

"_You know something__, Bolls?" he said finally, leaning back in so that their faces were inches apart. "I think that you and I have more in common than you'd like to admit."_

"_I highly doubt it." She said instantly, confused by this sudden subject change._

"_No, no…" he continued. "Me and you. We're two of a kind. We're coppers. We live on the right side of the line. We're both… very, very drunk on a regular basis…"_

_As he was talking, his voice sent her into a strange kind of haze, every word he was saying ringing true, and she knew she must be staring at him with glassy eyes._

"_And…" he said with a sigh. "We are both constantly surrounded by death."_

_She blinked as he made his point, and swallowed, suddenly nervous. A nauseous sensation, her past-yet-future flashing before her eyes. A bullet speeding towards her._

"_Well, I can't argue with that." She replied quietly, unable to tear her eyes away from him as he spoke the undeniable truth, words that were too meaningful to be coming from him. Her throat was sore._

"_Too right you can't. We both think about it too much. Death. Don't we?"_

"_How do you know what I think about?"_

"_I know exactly what you think about love, don't you worry. I know you think about posh bollocks that would no doubt go straight over my head. And I know you think about me in equal amounts."_

_This last remark was delivered with a distinct smugness. She rolled her eyes._

"_But I know for a fact that death is the thing you think about the most."_

_Of course she did. She couldn't deny it. A lot of the time, it was all she thought about. Constantly questioning it, questioning its impact, its power, its invisible hold over her. The thing that concerned her though, was that he shouldn't know about it. She'd never told him. Never had a truly meaningful conversation with him. He shouldn't know this much about her._

_She sighed, then smiled wryly at him, taking a gulp of wine._

"_Well, it's a wonder we have conversation at all, seeing as you know so much about me." Her voice was barely her own, shaking and gravelly, and she wondered how exactly she had ended up in this situation with him._

"_It's not hard to work out, seeing as you go on about it half the time." He replied, a dark humor in his eyes that tended to surface more often than not these days. She didn't know whether or not to be concerned. "Anyone would think you needed help."_

_She raised her eyebrows at this._

"_But not you, Gene?"_

_He smiled at her knowingly._

"_Like I said. Two of a kind."_

_***_

She staggered along, lost, just like when she'd first arrived in this world, this decade. She sobbed, a tiny, distraught sound, and she felt like a child again. Confused. Alone. So alone.

_Alex… come on Alex… We're losing her!_

She could hear them, strangers, far away, foreign voices that provided her with no comfort. She just kept looking at him, straight ahead of her, ignoring the violence and flames around him. He was stepping away from it all, hands in his hair, looking as out of place as she felt.

Tears were streaming down her face without her realising, as the memory struck her of everything she'd gone through with him by her side. It hurt more than it should have done, more than anything else. More than getting shot. Again.

***

_It seemed that he noticed it before she did. She jolted; for a split second she felt nothing at all, then an icy, sharp sensation in her gut._

_Then she saw his face. Staring straight at her. In total agony._

_It all hit her at once and the sheer terror was almost too much to bear, chilling her blood, numbing. The next thing she knew she was in his arms._

_She saw bullet after bullet speeding towards her, red balloons, fire, and cries and kisses…_

"_Bolls.."_

_It was a gasp. His face was inches away from her own and she could see every line, every mark, every single imprint that his pain left upon his face, the pain in her body causing black spots in her eyes._

_Clowns. She could see clowns._

"_Come on Bolls… look at us…"_

_She was looking right up at him, past everything else, her guardian, the only thing that made sense at yet made the least sense of all… oh God, and she felt it then, a wrenching, terrifying pain freezing her. Stabbing her over and over, and she reached for him, blind, clutching onto his coat, keeping him there, praying for him not to leave her._

_Her chest heaved – a scratchy, horrible cough, she could feel the blood rising in her throat and it flew from her, red spots hitting his face._

"_Fuck…"_

_She couldn't breathe. She couldn't see…_

"_Look at me, Bolly. Alex. Alex, look at me."_

_I'm looking. I'm looking. Please don't leave me. It was like she was trapped under an immovable weight, tied down, blindfolded, gagged. Absolutely helpless… for a moment she almost passed out from the fear. But she looked at him, through blurred vision, clung to him as she was drowning, knew, somehow, through all of it, he would save her. He had to._

_He'd save her._

_Gene._

"_Gene…"she forced out, the effort doubling her agony._

"_I've got you, love."_

_Inwardly, she sobbed, cried for a thousand things, memories, words unsaid, dreams unrealised. They were poisonous things, venom flowing through her, hurting so badly she wanted nothing more than to forget everything. And in that instant she knew she was dying._

"_Keep looking at me. Don't close your eyes."_

_Molly… she could see Molly. Every time her eyelids flickered she saw a glimpse of her, like seeing through fog, seeing visions that she'd spent so long convincing herself weren't real. All of it was in her head, this dystopia. So where does that leave me? She let out a noise she hadn't thought she was capable of, her soundless cries somehow breaking through, and she saw through her madness his eyes, shining, bloodshot, could feel his body trembling._

"_Come on..."_

_His voice wasn't his own: it was choked by bitter wails that he didn't allow to escape him, yet she saw it all in his eyes, every cry he stifled, every emotion he'd ever held back._

"_Stay with us. Please."_

Mum?

_Her voice… it was her daughter's voice. Calling to her, from so far away, from another world, the real world, and it was the most glorious thing she'd ever heard._

_She wasn't dying. She was waking up… And she smiled. She actually smiled, through every ounce of agony, every stab, every tear at her flesh, every drop of blood that spilled. She was going home._

"_Stay with us. Please."_

_His words reached her again, like an echo, and she stared up at him with all the love she had left in her, her joy far surpassing any hurt she felt… but he was falling apart before her, tears in his stormy eyes. She felt the grip he had on her, the grip that was holding her there, keeping her alive…_

"_It's okay…" she got out somehow, and she felt so much at once, a tidal wave so intense it was almost enough to destroy her. She was telling him the truth, telling herself, confirming it."It's going to be all right. I'll… I'll wake up." And she wanted to cry for the wonder of it, of finally getting what she had been praying for. Bullets speeding towards her, clowns, balloons, bombs… she could see it all and didn't care, none of it registered, because she was fighting. She was waking up; she was going home._

_Molly…_

"_Don't…" His grip on her tightened._

Mum!?

She's moving, someone get in here!

Alex! Alex, can you hear us?

"_Talking… you're making it worse, just stay with us. Look at me, they're on their way…"_

_She was losing him. She could barely make him out, and he meant more to her in that moment than he ever had before._

"_Fuck…"_

Alex? That's it, sweetheart…

Mum! Look, her eyes moved, they moved!

Step back…

We're getting signs of life in here!

"_Fuck, fuck, fuck…"_

_They're sharpening the axe for coppers like me…_

_What would you do, Gene? Last few seconds on Earth? Right now… say it…_

_You're pissed…_

_I can't die… can I?_

_A light flashed in front of her, obscuring him from her failing vision._

_She'd lost him…_

_It was you…_

_I was needed, and I was there…_

"_Don't die."_

That's it Alex…

Evan, look! Mum! Mum can you hear me?

"_Please, just…"_

_Unbreakable, Bolly._

"_Alex…"_

Alex?

Mum…I'm here Mum…

"Alex…"

***

How long ago was it? She'd died in his arms, left that body behind, woken up and seen a blinding light… She'd seen Molly. Seen her grinning, tears in her eyes; felt for a fleeting instant the grip that she had on her hand. They'd looked at each other, that unspoken bond glowing brilliantly between them, and she was so consumed by the love she felt for her that everything else just faded away, out of focus. She'd closed her eyes for a second, just one second.

And she opened them here. Standing on a street in the dead of night, the sounds of raging men and sirens and fire creating chaos in her head. Nothing made any sense. Perhaps this was a dream. But Gene… he was looking at her now. _He could see her_. And she knew it was real.

"No…" she groaned, pressing her hands over her ears. "No, I'm waking up… _I'm waking up_…"

His eyes, looking right into her eyes, into her heart.

"No… no, no, no, no…"

He was striding towards her, a look of undeniable fury on his face, fire in his eyes, he looked terrifying, a monster.

"_No!"_

In an instant he was inches in front of her. She screamed. She was feral; lashed out, hit him, felt him solid in front of her; she cried as each blow reached its target. He grabbed her wrists, holding her back, his grip so tight she thought they might snap.

"No… _please_, no…" she sobbed, clamping her eyes shut, pressing her forehead against his chest as she hammered against it, screaming, praying it wasn't so…

"_I want to go home!"_

She could do nothing more… she had nothing left in her. She sobbed in his grip, wept into his shirt, this man she'd left behind, who she _hated_.

"Oh… no, no…"

He had her by her arms now, shaking her. She stared at him through her tears, saw his face impossibly close, gritted teeth, tears in his own eyes that she'd never seen before, and he looked so desperate and wild as though he might break down along with her.

He was trying to speak through short, laboured breaths, but he couldn't form the words, could only stare at her; he was bruising her arms with his fierce grip, but she couldn't feel it.

_Stand back…_

_Get the kid out of here!_

_Mum!_

"Gene…"

"_You're dead!_" he yelled, and the force of it almost knocked her out – fresh sobs escaped her body and she grabbed his coat, trying to keep afloat, trying to make sense of it all…

"I don't…" she forced out, cries breaking her voice, breaking her heart. "I don't understand… I'm waking up…"

"Stop _talking!_" he roared, and threw her from his arms, hands in his hair as he turned away from her. He groaned and crushed her in his arms again, pulling her so close she could hardly breathe, could only hear the hammering of his heart, his dry, choking sobs that became more violent the more he tried to hold them back.

_We're losing her…_

"Help me…" She was too weak to stand, but he held her upright, his face buried into her neck, and her feet were lifted off the wet ground as he swung her around, staggering forward, laughing.

He was laughing.

She wondered, then, how long ago was it that she'd died in his arms? Her heart was shattering. She _wanted_ to die, wanted to feel it again, feel that glorious light on her, just the _hope_ that she might return. She'd been so close…

He pulled back to look down into her face; she'd never seen such a harrowing expression on his… he was looking at her like the rest of the world was on fire, and it seemed like it was, like it was falling down around them. Both worlds… .

"I just want to go _home_," she whispered as he took her face in his hands, hands that were shaking.

"I'll take you home." He muttered, fighting back a dopey sort of grin, and his smile made her want to die a thousand times more, because he wasn't meant to have her back in his arms, she wasn't meant to be here. But he was so happy, so ridiculously in love with her.

She couldn't believe she'd missed it.

"_I'll take you home."_

He'd never let her leave.


End file.
